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Lent 2
16/3/2025

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Psalm 27
Matthew 6:25-34

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[NOTE: Throughout, ‘Abraham’ is used for ‘Abram’ in the Genesis text].

It is surely a very strange text we have this morning from the book of Genesis.

It is also, of course, a crucial text – not only for the scriptural narrative but for what is happening in the world even today. (No small part of the events in the Holy Land over the last couple of years springs directly from what is said in our reading today from Genesis.)

I want to focus this morning just on the strangeness of the first promise about a great number of descendants, hoping to draw out not simply how unfamiliar to modern minds is the action in the story but how – that foreignness aside – there is a deeper strangeness which might speak to our sense of who and where we are, even now.

The text begins with the promise that God will be Abraham’s shield, and that his reward will be very great. This sounds pretty good, we might suppose, and so it’s perhaps a little surprising that Abraham responds with a question about the viability of his family tree. So far as he is concerned, that can be no shield or no reward while he remains childless. Or rather, the shield-and-reward Abraham looks for is precisely that he have descendants. The promise which God makes then is not a promise in relation to any passing personal crisis which needs to be fixed but the promise of a family which, for the most part, Abraham will not see.

God, then, restates the promise in terms of descendants numbered like the stars. This seems to satisfy the old man, and he ‘believes’. The strangeness here is that I suspect there are few of us who would be satisfied that God had given us a significant gift if it were possible that we ourselves might not even see that gift realised. How could the promise of such an extension of Abraham’s line into the future be the promise of a ‘shield’ and a ‘great reward’?

And so we might wonder: if the promise of descendants is Abraham’s shield here and now, what is the thing from which he must be shielded? If our protection is a future we will not see, what is it this future protects us against, here and now?

It might be enough for us right now not even to know the answer to this question as it relates to Abraham, but simply to see how different it is from our usual thoughts about what we think would constitute a shield or a reward for us here and now. Our personal and joint political lives are filled with desires for shields, and expectations of rewards, very few of which would be met with the promise of great-great-great grandchildren. That is, we don’t want God’s promises to come tomorrow, but today.

Yet this is exactly not what God promises Abraham.

And so we have to ask: if this is the divine order of things – if God’s sense for what we need is located in tomorrow and not in today – how are our deepest desires for today wrong?

It’s a bit scary, really – that we might be wrong about what we need. Though I don’t want to dig too deeply into the promise of the land given in today’s reading, it’s worth noting that the guarantee of the land promise is given to Abraham in a deep sleep, within which descends a ‘deep and terrifying darkness’. This is not just a cheery ‘it’s all going to work out OK in the end’. The thing God is going to do is like darkness to our sense of what is light – and this is shocking.

Again, we might wonder: if God’s promise is the answer to the question Abraham imagines matters, what is the question? Because the answer doesn’t make sense, given our normal questions. What is wrong with our questions given that God’s answer to Abraham would not impress us?

I don’t think I can answer the question about the right question(!) today in a way which will satisfy even myself, let alone you, unless – perhaps – it is simply this: that we are probably worried about the wrong things. Our questions don’t accord with God’s answers, with God’s gift.

The exception to this is Abraham himself. When the text tells us that Abraham ‘believed God’, the point is not at all about credulity or even pious trust; Abraham believes because the promise is true both to himself and to God. Abraham and God are both bound and set free by the future-located promise.

To fill this out a bit, we should recall that, in addition to the importance of the promised descendants and the gift of the land for the biblical story, this Genesis text also features in St Paul’s account of faith and justification by grace apart from moral works. That ‘Abraham believed and God counted this as righteousness’ became a central text for Paul’s attempt to speak of God’s freedom and the freedom of the children of God.

But Paul is not interested here in credulity – in the fact that Abraham simply believes whatever God says, as if the promise of countless descendants were not much different from the promise of an eternally re-filling packet of Tim Tams, and suggesting that if God had promised that Abraham would also have believed it.

Rather, God’s promise of the descendants means this: even long after you have gone, Abraham, I’ll still be there. But you will be present to me in my faithfulness to your descendants, in my remembering of my promise.

To be justified by grace in Paul’s sense is just this: that, before God, we stand on nothing but that God remembers us. This is our end, and it is what Abraham believes.

But if we believe with Abraham that this is our end, then it is also where we begin. We start with the promise that we are the memory of God’s promise to Abraham, and that there will be yet others by whom God remembers us.

All of this is to say that the whole thing – everything we thing we are caught up in and worrying about and working towards – it’s not really about us – not in the anxious way that we tend to experience it. “Abraham, your shield is not only that you will have more descendants than you could ever count, but more than you will ever count. But I will count them for you, and this will be your reward? It’s not just about you.”

And so for us, too: it’s not just about us.

This, of course, seems like bad news: like a deep and terrifying darkness, as if the light of God’s gaze is turned away from us to someplace, someone, else.

But it is in fact good news. It doesn’t render us irrelevant but free. This is because the story – the great story of which we are part – is now not our problem to finish or resolve. Our role in the story is now less to strive than it is to play; less to calculate than to experiment; less to work than to pray – whether in words or actions.

^{Matthew 6.25} ’Therefore I tell you, [JESUS SAYS] do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷ And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? ²⁸ And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ ³² For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. ³³ But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

This is what it means to believe: not to believe that God ‘exists’ but to believe that even when we no longer exist, it matters that we did, and matters to God, and in this is the glory in which we are clothed.

“Look toward heaven and count the stars”, God says. “This is the measure of my love for you.”

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Lent 1
9/3/2025

Deuteronomy 26:5b-11
Psalm 91
Luke 4:1-13

Sermon preached by Rev. Dr Peter Blackwood

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Deciding good from bad can be so hard, especially when bad can actually look very good. The idea of providing food for all people so that no one need go hungry seems pretty good to me. Having all the powers of the nations given into the hands of a truly good and godly person also seems pretty good. Using whatever means that might be possible to prove the goodness and the power of such a person seems good and sensible too. When we consider that this good man is Jesus there is much to be said in favour of these ways of accomplishing the good of all. Make sure all people are fed – make stones into bread. There are plenty of stones. They would make plenty of bread. This would satisfy the personal needs of the people.

Having the rulers of the world acknowledging the authority of Jesus as King of all people would solve the world’s political problems. Shows of supernatural power would coerce people to believe in Jesus and that would solve the religious problems. Are these not good things? Apparently not, and how would one know?

The simple answer in the case of Jesus in the wilderness might be that Luke tells us that Jesus was tempted by the devil. Quite simply any suggestion by the devil must be ipso facto bad. But of course, talk about the devil presents a particular problem to our modern minds. The personification of evil in a character that can be seen and heard and touched is quite alien to us. It is not our experience. It seems to me that in the terms I have just described such a devil was not Jesus’ experience either. I am not saying that the devil doesn’t exist or that Jesus didn’t have an encounter with the devil. I am saying that the gospel writers wrote of evil in the form a the devil because by doing so they were able to speak into the mind set of their day and overcome all kinds of difficulties that are encountered if you try to explain the events of Jesus in the wilderness in other ways. For starters a conversation between Jesus and the devil makes it clear that Jesus was not dealing with any idea of evil in himself. Promptings to do what is wrong come from beyond Jesus in the gospel writers’ scheme of things.

I think, before I say another word, I had better clear up this business about the devil or Satan. I said a moment ago, ‘I am not saying the devil doesn’t exist.’ Was I therefore saying that the devil does exist? Scripture deals with the presence of evil in different ways. Sometimes it is personified in a devil, in demons, in Satan, in a powerful angel gone wrong, cosmic power, powerful forces set against the will of God. What it all adds up to is that the bible agrees that there are forces within us and around us that are in opposition to love, health, wholeness and peace – against those things God is in favour of.

I am writing quite a long list of questions to ask St Peter at the pearly gate when I get there, and one of them is about how evil is present in the world, but at this stage of my journey I am inclined to go along with scripture, not in terms of a devil but certainly in terms of forces within and beyond human beings that are in opposition to God’s plans for love and wholeness and peace.

For me, therefore, Jesus’ time of trial in the wilderness was a confrontation with that power of opposition. The thing about that power is that it is dressed so respectably – more like a blue suit and red tie than battle fatigues. If there were a personification of evil in the devil I do not think he would be distinguished by horns or a pointing tail. I think he would be as respectable as you and me, and thoroughly pleasant besides. It is one of the most sinister things about evil – it is so reasonable. The choices Jesus is given are not obviously evil. They are not even selfish. They represent choices that should give good things to people. They are even backed up with texts from Scripture. They must be good. Evil is not playing fair when it dresses up as if it is good. That is particularly sinister.

Another aspect of this story of Jesus making his decisions about his ministry is that the suggestions made by the devil are the only suggestions before Jesus. He hasn’t got a set of plans from Satan on the one hand and another package of ideas for ministry from God on the other. To make matters worse Jesus is in the wilderness with and by the Holy Spirit. Our reading began, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness,… God and evil are there with Jesus and the devil is the only one coming up with the ideas. Jesus returns from the desert with the articulated ideas for how he will conduct his ministry all rejected. The ideas of the evil one are cast aside. The devil leaves Jesus, but Luke says that evil has not left forever. He says that the devil would wait for an opportune time.

Jesus comes away from his forty-day temptation in the wilderness knowing what not to do. We have no indication of a plan. The only thing that emerges as the story unfolds is that the way of God for Jesus would be the way of the cross. His way ahead is lit, but with a poor light. I interviewed a candidate for the ministry once. I asked how she would tackle the issues that faced her down the track. She said that the Lord was a lamp to her feet and light to her path but he only ever showed where the next step would be. That for me was a wonderful statement of trust. Jesus was left with the same need of trust. So are we.

We can’t even come up with definitive answers to the questions of what is right and what is wrong. We don’t really know how to plan for the best for our children. We can’t be certain if this or that choice is God’s way or if it is evil dressed up as good complete with Scriptural warrants.

We can know that Jesus knows the dilemmas we face. His temptations were greater than ours. Not only that, but temptation is not a time when God is far away. ‘Filled with the Holy Spirit the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness.’ For whatever reason our alone times are spirit filled times. (That is not to say that we can have lonely times when God seems far away. I want to distinguish between lonely times and alone times.) So it is that Christian people have learned to come away from their wilderness experiences, not so much with questions answered as with faith enriched – being prepared to walk with God again and to trust, one step at a time.

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Epiphany 4
2/2/2025

Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71
Luke 4:21-30

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Does the prayer of our psalmist this morning make any sense?

It is a prayer for protection, that God be a “rock of refuge, a strong fortress”.  This much seems straightforward; those in need reach out, and God is often such a resort. And yet we might imagine that if God were able to become such a fortress, and if – as he testifies – God has been the poet’s hope and trust since the days of his youth (vv6f), then why is there a problem in the first place? Has God failed to keep up what would seem to be his end of the deal?

There is at least a tension here, and perhaps it’s even worse than this. The poet isn’t in the throes of what we might call “general” suffering – illness or infirmity, poverty, a broken heart, or any such thing which even his persecutors might suffer at times. His suffering is specifically that which arises from the life lived according to the call of God. It would seem to be his own very faithfulness which has seen these hard times visited upon him. Later in the psalm (v20), he even “blames” God for what has happened, addressing God as, “you who have made me see many troubles and calamities.”

Taking seriously the things the psalm sets alongside each other, there emerges what is, perhaps, an unexpected account of what it means to live faithfully, and to pray. The psalm contradicts the simplistic notion that the faithful always have a good time of it. The faith of the poet here cannot be cast as a last resort for some kind of protection from the ills of the world, a kind of vaccine we take in order to ward off evil. Quite to the contrary, the prayer of the psalmist suggests that faith might actually be the thing which causes suffering for the believer – at least the kind of suffering that the poet experiences. For the “troubles and calamities” he experiences seem to be persecutions for what he believes in the first place. What he believes marks him somehow in the eyes of others. His faith marks him as different in what he will and will not do, in what he will and will not say, in what he looks to as a measure of truth. And this brings conflict in a world where the things of this particular God are rejected.

It’s common these days – within the church almost as much as without – to caricature Christian faith and prayer as a response to an experience of secular life. Believing is here something we do in order that our situation might be changed: we believe as a means to an end.

But, for the psalmist, it is what he already believes which has become the source of heartache for him, as it has become a focus for mockery (vv13,11). But this mockery is not for the poet a sign of God’s absence, but rather arises from the very presence of God in the poet’s life. And so, despite first appearances, there is no contradiction when the poet calls out to God for help. It is not that faith knows the presence and the absence of God, coming and going. It is that God’s presence is as much a problem as a solution.

And so the faith of the psalmist doesn’t come and go according to the circumstance. Faith is steady. It turns to God not simply because something has gone wrong, but because it has first known the “going right” which relationship to God has brought before. And so faith is no grasping at straws when all else has failed. Such a “faith” – so-called – does not know the God it longs for; it longs only for a change of circumstances and “hopes” that there might be a God who can bring this about.

But what distinguishes the psalmist’s hopeful faith from the simple wish for relief is the thing which will mark its arrival. Those who simply wish for change long only for a change of circumstance. It brings about in them no real change but the relief itself. And that is the end of the matter, until the next crisis arises.

But for faith which hopes for change – and so looks to a God it already knows as the agent of change – the outcome is marked not only by relief but by praise and thanksgiving which reflects a renewed experience of God’s faithfulness.

And so the poet finishes the psalm in a surprising way – not actually praising God yet but looking forward to the time of praising God:

²² I will also praise you with the harp
for your faithfulness, O my God;
I will sing praises to you with the lyre,
O Holy One of Israel.
²³ My lips will shout for joy
when I sing praises to you;
my soul also, which you have rescued.

The psalmist looks forward not only to his deliverance, but to the praise which will spring from his lips. For this deliverance will be something which marks a constancy in his life – a constancy which is God Godself. The psalmist’s life is structured not by the ups and downs, the ins and outs of human existence, but by God’s company along the way. His life is not simply a story of what happened to him, but a story within the story of God – a story within the call to trust God who is faithful. God’s love and faithfulness frame the psalmist’s experience in the bright times and in the dark ones. And so he does not simply suffer or celebrate according to the circumstances; he finds the call of God to be the way of understanding where he is, and what he is to be. In the good times, then, and in the bad, he continues to learn what it is to be a creature of this God, trusting in God’s promise to make peace of him and his circumstances.

And in the meantime, the poet gets on with the next thing which will be required if he is to remain faithful: the next word, or act, or prayer.

And this is God’s promise also to us. Though our experience of the world can feel harder because we believe, our faith itself is that God, and not anything other thing in the world, is finally to be trusted. And so we pray in confidence, trusting that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. With poet, we too will give thanks and praise, that this is indeed the case.

And, in the meantime, we too will get on which the next thing which faithfulness to a God like this requires: the next necessary word, or deed, or prayer.

Based on Epiphany 4C 2016